Hey guys.
Fuller here with Custom Offsets.
It is winter in Wisconsin.
It is like 20 degrees out and I am freezing.
We're gonna bring you.
This is an episode of stuff I never knew winter prep.
(hip hop music)
Hi.
So a couple of things that we're gonna talk about today.
We're gonna talk about your tire selection.
Talk about some lighting issues,
paint protection for both your truck and your wheels,
as well as some tips for the diesel guys out there.
Alright, so you may or may not know that mud tires
are not designed to be ran in the snow.
By having a much wider tire, you actually,
it's like a flotation effect
and you have better chance of sliding across ice and snow.
So a mud tire works really good if you're in deep snow.
I mean, up here in Wisconsin we'll have a couple of feet
on the ground at times.
You can drive through that no problem with a mud tire
'cause it's nice and separated.
You know, the lugs are separated far from each other
that you don't run into any issues.
The issues you run into with mud tires
are when you start driving them on the street
you have that thin film I guess of ice or snow
and it's packed down, the compound is not designed
to be ran on ice like that.
So, there's a couple of options you have
as far as what tire selection to go with.
If you have a big truck and it's lifted up
they don't make specific 35 or 37
or even 33 inch snow tires.
So I think a lot of the guys around here
are running hybrid tires
and they seem to be okay in the snow.
Regardless you're not gonna find a hybrid tire
or a mud tire that are ideal in snow.
The ones that probably work the best are actually the ATs
because they are a little softer compound.
There not quite as hard as these mud tires.
So, you get the best traction out of those.
But again most people aren't gonna buy a second set
of tires just to run in the winter.
So, if you live in a climate like we do in Wisconsin
where you get feet of snow and it's always cold
and there's ice on the road all the time,
you might want to think about selecting a hybrid tire.
If you haven't seen our hybrid video,
we'll put a card.
It should be right about here somewhere.
You can click on that and that'll take you
to the hybrid video if you wanna learn more about those.
We also do the tire comparison video
between the mud tires, the all-terrain tires
and the hybrid tires.
And again we'll put a card on the screen,
if you're watching this on YouTube,
you can click on that.
If you're on Facebook come out to YouTube, subscribe
and then you can use all these other features
that I'm talking about.
So, I think that should pretty much
cover it for the mud tires.
The next thing I wanna talk about is lighting.
So, a lot of people when they start to customize
their trucks they want to put in new headlights
or add light bars.
And we'll kind of talk about that a little bit.
So, the really common thing probably even three
or fours years ago, not that long ago was to put HIDs in
and what we discovered in the cold climates
is that the HID's don't work that well in the cold
because they do take some time to warm up.
So, when you first turn your truck on
those HIDs aren't very bright.
In fact, if you're buying the Ebay kits
they can literally be so dim that you can barely see.
You might as well just run with your corner lights on.
So, the best kind of lighting you could use in the winter
is LED lighting.
It doesn't take any time to warm up.
You turn the vehicle on and the LEDs are just as bright.
So, whether you're buying
a complete replacement LED headlight
using the LED light bars or just buying the retrofit kits
to put into your stock headlights,
the LEDs work really good.
Now if you put an LED in a regular housing
that has your typical chrome shield in it,
you are gonna throw light everywhere
which might be good for you
but it does blind other drivers.
So you want to just be courteous of that.
And the LED headlights also do work really good
in projectors and that's gonna give you a cleaner beam
and not be throwing light all over the place.
Just be aware too though that not all LED's,
you know a lot of the LED retrofit kits that you're buying
the LED bulb is actually bigger than your stock components,
so just make sure that's gonna fit inside
your housing.
The standard housing is usually not a problem
'cause there's a whole lot of space between
the chrome backing and the plastic front
but if you're putting it in a projector housing
just make sure you have the space to do that.
So, the next thing we're gonna talk about
is ceramic coating.
If you're not familiar with that it's basically
you go through, get your vehicle detailed.
It has to be cleaned before you apply this coating
and then what that does it kind of acts as almost,
I guess if you wanna call it simply it acts as a wax.
It's like a shield between your paint and the elements.
By having that coating on there you can literally
pour water on it and it just beads right off,
so it's kind of like Rainex for your windshield.
And you can put that on any painted surface
on your vehicle as well as on the wheels.
What we did for wheel protection last year
somebody said you can put WD-40 on your wheels,
it leaves a film on there and it acts as a protectant.
We wanted to try it.
We tried it on both painted and polished.
If you wanna see those videos again,
we'll put a card right here and you can click on it
to see those videos.
In conclusion, to give you the short answer
on painted wheels we found out it does work pretty good.
It adds a film to it.
You kind of put it on lightly
and leave that film on.
And the snow and the salt and the ice that all gets
packed in there, if you bring it inside in our case
we can bring it inside and wash it down
but if you just use hot water or go to the carwash
and spray it off, all of the road grim comes right off
and you can reapply that WD-40 coating.
On chrome wheels it doesn't work.
We tried it and it ruined a set of chrome wheels
that we had on the Hummer.
They still had pitting
and it just didn't work out very good.
So, if you have chrome wheels you don't wanna do that.
Try to stick to the ceramic coating.
The other option you can do if you wanna go the cheap way
it doesn't work the greatest but Plasti Dip is
a good option too if you wanna cover
your entire wheels in Plasti Dip.
It should protect from the elements a little bit.
But again it's a pain.
And when it comes springtime,
it's not the easiest to get off.
There's a couple off different ways you can try it
but I'll let you look into if you wanna do it that way.
Last part here is mainly for the diesel guys,
so we're gonna talk about a couple things involving that.
Number one being the block heater.
So, this is an option on both gas trucks
and diesel trucks.
Here in Wisconsin I think every diesel that I've ever seen
usually comes with a block heater other than
the BMW diesel that I drive and that's a whole new system.
We won't get into that.
So, the reason you have a block heater
when you can plug your truck in,
it's gonna keep the engine block warm,
which in turn the residual heat from that
is gonna heat up your oil and the coolant.
So, not only does it make it easier to start
but it also gives you heat faster in the vehicle.
So it's a comfort thing and a practicality thing
'cause obviously you want your vehicles
to start all the time.
The oil in winter because it's so cold
tends to become thicker.
The viscosity is thicker.
So, it's harder for it to circulate.
You don't wanna starve your engine of oil.
Obviously that would be very detrimental
and if you end up with an engine replacement
that's very costly.
So, by having an engine block heater you keep the oil
thinner and that allows it to start faster
and then because the coolant is also preheated
that you have heat in the vehicle faster
for comfort wise.
With diesels typically they're running two batteries
but even in your gas trucks you wanna make sure
that you have a decent battery
with plenty of cold cranking amps.
The more you have obviously the better
it's gonna crank over in the cold.
It's pretty self explanatory.
I just wanted to touch on that a little bit.
The oil that your running also makes a difference.
So, Rotella actually has a 10W-30
that you can run in the diesels all season.
That just makes it easier you buying the same oil.
You don't have to worry about having two different types.
But if you are running a thicker oil in the summer
you wanna change it out to something thinner in the winter.
Again, so that's just easier to flow throughout the engine.
You're not starving the engine of oil.
Lastly, the other important thing for the diesels
is to put some antigel in there.
If your fuel gels up again you're gonna run
into issues starting your truck
and even driving it down the street if your fuel's
gelling up you're gonna have a lugging effect
and it's gonna be really hard on the engine
to keep itself running.
But that should just be a quick video to show you.
Some of the winter tips that we have for prepping
your vehicle for the winter whether it be gas or diesel.
But if you have any other questions regarding winter driving
or anything, feel free to drop them in the comments below
or shoot us a message we'll be happy to answer them.
And then if you have any other suggestions
as far as what to do to keep the wheels clean,
we'll try something again.
So last year people recommended
a couple different wax products,
we're probably gonna give those a shot.
But if there's something that you use
or if something you've heard of that you're unsure about,
let us know what it is
and we'll give it a shot.
We're not afraid to wreck some wheels.
Peace.
I can't a do peace 'cause I got mittens on.
How do I do a peace?
Peace.
- [Man] Sound.
You got audio on?
Does my hat look good?
I'm pretty excited.